Open Letter to the DC Bar

April 20, 2025

Dear Mr. Shaun Snyder,

Members of the D.C. Bar are under attack. The Trump administration has threatened Paul Weiss, Wilmerhale, Covington and Burling, Perkins Coie and Jenner & Block. Executive orders from Trump “have threatened to cripple the firms by revoking the security clearances of their lawyers, ending access to government buildings and forcing clients who do business with the government to disclose if they are represented by the firm. Trump also issued a separate executive order on Friday directing US attorney general Pam Bondi to investigate lawyers taking actions to block the administration’s priorities.” (see “A capitalistic cowardice’: big law firms being threatened by Trump face pressure to speak out”, The Guardian, March 26, 2025)

I am not a lawyer, but I have to believe that what the Trump administration is doing is illegal. The problem is that no individual law firm can fight back because if they do, their firms will be jeopardized by the fear of their customers leaving. They are stuck in a collective action problem, where each individually cannot act, and so all of them are threatened.

I believe the D.C. Bar could solve that problem. Since members of these firms are also members of the Bar, I hope that the Bar would have standing in court and would be able to bring a lawsuit on their behalf. If the D.C. Bar brought a lawsuit, the Trump administration could not go after a particular law firm. The Bar could pick lawyers to represent the Bar whose firms do not have customers who do business with the Trump administration, therefore blunting where he could direct his ire.

And, in terms of funding the effort, I believe that if the D.C. Bar starting a funding campaign to raise funds for such a lawsuit, that campaign would be very successful in raising money both from the firms that are threatened by the Trump administration and from the general public rallying to your defense. Indeed, I’d be happy to donate $10,000 to such a fund if it was in support of a lawsuit trying to stop the Trump administration's misuse of government power against members of the D.C. Bar.

Part of the mission of the D.C. Bar is to safeguard the professional interests of members of the bar. Right now the professional interests of the members of the bar urgently need safeguarding. Please consider my suggestion.

Respectfully,